A Simple Gift
by nerdlife4eva
Summary: What does Christophe do with all the stuffies and roses that he receives at competitions? The answer might surprise you :) First Entry for Day 1 of Christophe Week on Tumblr


**This is part of Christophe Week on Tumblr! The art for this fic was created by the fabulous magical-mistral on Tumblr! Please go check it out if you are a Chris fan!**

* * *

All around Chris bright lights were trained to shine upon him, lighting up the details in his costume and making the makeup on his face sparkle to highlight his cheekbones. To his left, the photographer was chatting with the woman who had interviewed him, seemingly deciding what angle would look the best to complement their subject matter. To his right, the makeup artist was nervously tapping her brush to the back of her hand, the crease in her forehead signaling to Chris that she was critiquing her own work more than his face itself.

Life was always like this; surrounded by people, but none of them explicitly concentrating on him. They looked at his outside, admired his face or his body, but were never directly invested in him personally. Chris knew he wasn't the only skater who felt this way. The smart ones like Otabek and Seung-gil, had put up walls to guard themselves from the heartache of mundane scrutiny. It wasn't a talent he had developed, and there were still days when Chris wanted to shout at the world to take a closer look.

This interview had been different though. Despite the current vapid state of the photographer's directions, Chris was reassured that this article would be anything but ordinary. He had agreed to this process at a special request, and the softest part of his heart felt the tug of untarnished hope. Smiling at his interviewer as she approached, he accepted the rose presented to him. Roses had brought him here, and the small acknowledgement of that with the single bloom cradled in his fingers made his smile spread with genuine pleasure.

It was a foundation called Make a Wish that had originally opened Chris's eyes to the amount of children around the world who were not getting to live childhood as carefree and full of laughter as they should. A small boy named Emmitt, who had joined Chris at his second GPF, had described life in the hospital as a prison of medications and wires. It had broken Chris's heart to hear a boy, shorter than Chris's own belly button, speak as if life was a battle to be fought.

Emmitt's influence had caused Chris to sit in his apartment, computer shining brightly into the night with his beloved kitty curled into his lap. On a notepad in front of him was a list of every competition location that was already set for that season. Slowly, Chris entered each city into the search box to build a list of another kind. There were no shortage of hospitals in the world. In those hospitals were always at least one floor of children. On these floors in particular, according to Emmitt, the joy was limited in supply.

With the help of his coach, Chris began to connect with the hospitals around each competition. They had started small, visiting children who were specifically known to be fans of ice skating. On those visits though, Chris had seen the longing looks of the other patients. He had seen the wishful eyes gazing over the bouquet of flowers and the small stuffed animals, all collected from the ice and cleaned before being gifted. After his third visit, to a hospital in Barcelona, Chris had decided to expand their visits to every child on the floor.

Thus it became that after every competition, Chris hand-constructed every bouquet and labeled each stuffed animal with a hand-written tag. There were no shortage of people he could have asked to help him with this, but Chris wanted to do it himself.

For years now, Chris had been gathering the roses thrown on the ice, collecting them from the arms of the younger skaters and carefully carting them back to hotel rooms all over the world. From his luggage would come a pair of sharp scissors and spools of ribbon in various colors, placed next to the piles of colorful roses on the nearest flat surface. Carefully, Chris would trim away the thorns, consulting his printed list to form the exact number of bouquets needed.

Even when exhaustion and disappointment were at their highest peaks, Chris would pull his softest sweater and most comfortable jeans from his suitcase, sliding them over his body and walking from his hotel room with loaded arms. Bouquets of flowers were balanced with various sizes of stuffed animals, all becoming tools in Chris's mission to spread happiness.

Once all of the bouquets were tied and the stuffed animals sported their ice skate shaped tags, Chris would carefully stack his gifts into the waiting boxes. He would load the items into the cab and climb in next to them, triple checking the address and preparing himself for the emotional experience of each trip. His heart never left unaffected, and Chris didn't want that to ever change.

Standing in front of the flashing lights of the cameras, Chris let his mind drift over the interview questions. She had asked him what the hardest part of the visits were, and the tears sprung to his eyes once more as he considered his answer.

New faces and missing faces. New faces meant another child who was fighting a war that should have never been their burden; more children who were sick and being robbed of their childhood by unforgiving diseases.

When a child was no longer in the hospital, Chris held his breath until he found out their fate. Some children were at home, rejoining their families and friends in the life they deserved. The happiness that Chris felt in those instances was possibly the greatest happiness Chris ever felt in his life.

The other side though, the children who became angels, left him crying into his pillow, praying aloud for the healing of their families. He often found himself wishing that he could take their place, change their fate, and hoping that he had been able to bring them even the smallest of delight before they had left the world.

Emmitt had been an angel for a year. Chris had attended the funeral, carrying one final rose. When he approached the casket, he had seen the row of stuffed animals and turned to press his face into his boyfriend's shoulder. It had been the single hardest day of his entire life.

When Emmitt's mother, a writer for an international parents' magazine, had called him about joining the article being written to memorialize Emmitt's life, Chris had accepted immediately. The others who joined him, a doctor, Emmitt's favorite nurse, and the man who ran the ice cream shop close to Emmitt's home, were an array of eclectic humans that Emmitt had deemed heroes. Chris felt honored to stand among them, convinced that his contribution couldn't possibly have meant as much as theirs did. He felt slightly silly, standing in an old costume that had been Emmitt's favorite, but he smiled for the camera and held his rose as instructed. If the last thing he could do for Emmitt was be a part of this, Chris would do anything asked of him.

* * *

The article was released on a Tuesday. Chris's phone flooded with messages. Fans from across the world were stunned that Chris's now-titled "visits of hope" had gone entirely unnoticed. Other skaters were equally as shocked, although none of the messages seemed to contain surprise at Chris's thoughtfulness. He had been pleasantly surprised by all of the reactions, but none more than that of his long-time friend and rival.

"Chris," Victor's text started, "I have always been proud to call you my friend. Your efforts to help these children, without need for acknowledgement or appraisal, speaks to the amazing human being you are. Well done, my friend."

Placing his phone back on the desk, Chris smiled to himself. Walking to his bookcase, he pulled a heavy square book from its sagging place on the middle shelf. Flipping open the pages, Chris smiled at his own collection.

One dried rose from every competition, starting with the one tossed from the ice by his idol, Victor Nikiforov.

From the moment Chris caught that rose, he understood the power that could be held in a simple gift. When Chris had presented his tiny fan with an armful of roses, the light in Emmitt's eyes had reminded him of that feeling.

Closing his book, Chris placed it back on the shelf and crossed the room to his desk. There was another season about to begin and another list of visits to outline. In memory of Emmitt, Chris would continue the undertaking of spreading love and caring to every child, in every corner of the world.


End file.
